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Our society is so incredibly two-faced when it comes to this.
Make parenting and absolute ballbuster, but also grief people for opting out. We went the wrong direction on both ends. We need to help parents but also be more accepting of childfree.
A village.
Not my village.
Silly poors.
“It takes a village” was a line adopted by Hillary Clinton and the title of one of her many books. Conservatives hated it, because they read it as Nanny State Socialism.
The rebuttal was “It takes a family”, with a heavy emphasis on stripping aid and punishing “Welfare Queen” single-mothers, extended family, and other community-based welfare groups. Instead, starting with Reagan and really hitting a high water market with Bush Jr, the conservative focus was on “Faith Based Initiatives”, through which religious institutions could tap into federal and state money to provide services as a benefit of church membership. More radical conservative states also pushed for Covenant Marriage, which sought to contractually prohibit divorce. And then there was the fixation on anti-abortion measures, which conservatives believed would discourage casual sex and force more pregnant women into marriage contracts and church membership rolls.
I don’t really see any modern liberal still clinging to the Clinton-esque wording, precisely because the Alt-Right has done such an excellent job of demonizing the idea of community support for child care. The modern liberal politician is far more invested in “Abundance” as a panacea, wherein the government uses private subsidies and big public grants to AI research in order to create such vast surpluses that community involvement becomes unnecessary.
Just a note on the timeline. Reagan’s policies were already in full swing by the time Hillary wrote that book. The Clintons were political nobodies from Arkansas when Reagan was in office. Bill was governor, but can you name the governor of Arkansas today without looking it up? I’m guessing most people outside the state can’t.
Reagan’s policies were already in full swing by the time Hillary wrote that book.
Sure, he’d been in bed with the televangelicals for a while. The policy of welding public services to church institutions was an old one. The rhetoric that came out in response to Hillary’s '96 book came afterwards.
Bill was governor, but can you name the governor of Arkansas today without looking it up?
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, last I checked. But that’s more because the Huckabees are a notoriously sleazy political dynasty who has been tight with the Trumps going back to the '16 primary.
“It takes a village”
Social programs exist
“…no not like that.”
Wife and I don’t have any family nearby really so we get zero help with our 2 year old. We make okay money but my god any help at all would be a SUPER NICE use of my tax money over bombing brown children.
The GOP is a death cult.
In similar news, my 16yo, who’s in honors classes, didn’t know what the Scopes Monkey Trial was. I hate the fucking Bible Belt.
I’ve never heard of it before now, so here’s a summary for anyone else with a major gap in their education:
The Scopes trial was a famous legal case in Tennessee where a teacher was accused of violating a law that banned the teaching of evolution in public schools.
Evolution was never specifically covered in my education. I remember at least one class skipping it on purpose because evolution was controversial and the instructor was not going to get consent forms for every student.
I feel you. We ended up having to move for more help with the kids. Socialized childcare of some kind would have kept me working and contributing to wider society. Instead I had to move back to the village. It seems like taxes being used to support people would help “line go up.”
At first it seemed wild to me that you weren’t taught it, but now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know where I learned about it from. I might have learned it in a high school class, but I came out as an atheist at that time and did a lot of research on my own, so I’m not sure.
It doesn’t seem like something that should be esoteric, but something that should be taught alongside other educational and civil rights battles and milestones.
i’m 35, took AP us history in high school in california, and i’m pretty sure i’d never heard of the scopes trial before just now. It seems like a somewhat esoteric thing to teach about to me? idk why he would be expected to know about it.
The Scopes Trial is integral to understanding the build up of the Religious Right in the US. People forget that Scopes lost the trial, the real win was the court of public opinion. It made that “literalist” fundamentalist christianity look ridiculous, regressive and anti-science in the public eye. Fundamentalists basically made a retreat to lick their wounds and plot other strategies over the next few decades.
William Jennings Bryant was involved and he’s a pretty critical character to understanding a lot of US economic history too - the idea that economic policy should benefit the common person, that we should not “crucify mankind upon a cross of gold” is something at has resonance today. It’s fascinating to consider how different his views on social welfare are to the people who would agree with him on creationism/teaching evolution in schools today.
It was a major event that had a lasting impact for the rest of the century
Inherit the Wind at least was on AP lit course lists, im a few years older than you and took most of those classes in Florida
It involved Clarence Darrow, one of the most noteworthy attorneys of the century
sigh this fuckin system…
For an APUSH project, I did a Comedy Central style roast of William Jennings Bryant. Used clips from the movie to show him getting owned by Darrow.
I did another one where I made a shitty Java game where you played as Nixon stealing papers from Watergate.
APUSH was lit. I had no interest in history, wanted to be a scientist, but my teacher took me aside and told me that I was really good at history. (He was awesome - he actually took a moment to show us how ridiculous Alex Jones and 9/11 Truthers were by showing how quickly you could get to David Icke’s lizard people shit from those forums. He put that man on my radar all the way back in 2009!) That moment kept me alive through high school and is why I picked up a history degree alongside my science one.
History is so important to understanding what is happening now; it’s often inconvenient to the powers that be. That’s why it gets shafted off to coaches who wouldn’t know the Monroe Doctrine from Marilyn. (I’ve begged for someone to let me teach a section of US alongside my chemistry…)
A great history teacher can be amazing. I was fortunate to have a variety of excellent teachers. I was always gonna do something bookish (hah! Im an electrician, funny how that goes) but I had a physics honors teacher who stood out like that. Made me see the world completely differently.
Unfortunately, I think the places you have to learn a lot of history are outside of classrooms. Most of my history teachers were very pro status quo, unlike my literature teachers. I usually played devils advocate.
Now that one kid is in those classes I feel obligated to round out that education.
Isn’t this what the OP says?
It takes a village
… asks village for help
Village response: … sure! … but here is a 20 page document that details the conditions that need to be met before we help
Subject to change whenever we fuckin feel like it
“It takes a village but it better not be ours!”
White Lady in Suburbs’ “It takes a village to raise a child.”
Also White Lady in Suburbs: “Hello, police?!?! I see an unaccompanied child and I’m afraid they’re gonna kill me!”
What do you mean they’re WALKING TO SCHOOL?! Where are their parents?!
IME “It takes a village” is something people that already agree with this say. No conservative says that.
Conservatives also say it, it’s just that their village is a church, a coal mine, and convenience store that accepts company scrip.
Just as someone who was dumped onto the church and community because my parents were both Christian fundamentalists AND tired of parenting, I can genuinely disagree with the notion that ‘no conservative says that.’ It was said to me all the time as a way to justify their total lack of interest in me.
You’re not raising ‘the workforce’, you’re raising a human being that will produce a vast amount of co2 future humans, even us in coming decades, can’t afford to have in the atmosphere. So if raising this child is such a selfless burden the solution is simple: don’t do it.
Most jobs exist because the people exist to do them. We saw what was essential to support a global population of 8 billion odd with covid (ie not all that much really).
AI - vast energy drain itself that in co2 terms shouldn’t exist - is coming for white collar bullshit jobs. We very well might be entering a period where the people exist but the jobs don’t. We don’t need more people from wealthy nations, consuming wealthy nationers’ resources. There are more than enough workers to provide for everybody, the excess are primarily consumers.
So, given that it is such a burden, just don’t bother.
Honestly, bringing a whole new kid into the world when there are so many out there in the system without parents is pretty selfish too.
I mean I get it. I too, desperately want to be a mother. But if I ever get to a point where I could actually support a child (doubtful), I’ll definitely adopt.
I agree all those things should be free BUT I also think people that have children knowing they can’t aford are assholes.
A lot of people know kids are expensive, but very few non-parents really grasp just how expensive - the nickels and dimes turn into fifties and hundreds pretty fast.
And that’s before you run into things like medical complications!
I just saw a post that mentioned how disabled is one of the only minority groups you can become a member of at any time. It’s a good reminder that a lot of people in dire straits may have been in a different position prior to that. I know someone with two kids who got cancer. They didn’t have any family and they were unable to continue working. Their life changed completely due to no fault of their own. People get laid off, or their kids get sick and they have increased medical costs AND increased parental duties. I know a nurse who was making good money and was in an accident and became partially paralyzed. She’s still willing to work but is not able to get the tools or rehab needed to get to a position to do that. You might be able to argue that they should have all planned better, but no one has the buffer needed for so many things. Some people who were planning on being stay at homes take their kids somewhere safe knowing they can’t provide for them in order to shield them from abuse.
I know your comment was about people who have kids while not being able to afford them, I just think it’s important to point out that not all parents who are struggling started out that way. That’s not to mention the issues of access to sex ed, preventative measures, or social pressures. It’s important to remember that very few people actually want to raise kids in environments where they’re not provided for.
I agree that’s why I added “Knowing”. Anyone of us can become homeless in a paycheck.
For what it’s worth I’ve only really heard anybody use that phrase in the context of wanting to be able to beat other people’s children too.
word
preach it Sam Sam, yeah!
This can’t be stressed enough
There is no such thing as a village, only individuals and individual families maybe.
Why would you say “individual families maybe” but stop there? What’s stopping a larger social unit than a family from existing?
It’s a spoof on an infamous Margaret Thatcher quote.
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